Torchlight 2 Mod Ideas

Torchlight 2 is coming out soon, and the kindhearted folks over at Runic Games are going to ship the game with their developer tools for any customer to use.

In preparation for this, I suggest we have a community brainstorm for Torchlight 2 Mod Ideas.

Here are some ideas to help get you guys thinking. Post your ideas too!!!

- Item Leveling Mod - This mod would be designed to give an alternative to enchanting. It would be pretty straight forward, armor gains defense points each level they gain, weapons would gain both min and max damage as they leveled up. Equipment would only gain exp when worn. Enchanters/enchantment shrines would no longer spawn. All gear would spawn at level one but would still have initial level requirement to wear, the higher the level requirement the faster the gear would scale up in power from each level gained.

This would allow for say a level 230 rusty sword to be more powerful than a level 1 Excalibur, but less powerful than say a level 20 Excalibur. So holding onto old gear is still somewhat useful but not overpowered.

The reason i come up with this mod idea is because in the first Torchlight, players would end up enchanting a ton but often ignore new found equipment, usually selling it straight off, because most bonuses could be added post item spawn, it made awesome loot a ton less awesome...

- Custom Stat System Mod - (based on a level cap 100 scale at 5 points per level starting with 1 in each stat and 24 points to distribute)

-Agility - Attack Speed +0.2% per point
Move Speed +0.1% per point
Dodge Rating +1 per point

-Dexterity - Melee/Ranged Accuracy Rating +1 per point
Min Melee Damage +0.5% per point
Max Ranged Damage +1% per point

-Intelligence - Max Mana +1% per point
Mana Regen +0.05% per point
Max Magic Damage +1% per point

-Strength - Max Melee Damage +1% per point
Min Ranged Damage +0.5% per point
All Elemental Resistance Ratings +1 per point

-Vitality - Max Health +1% per point
Health Regen +0.05% per point
Defense +1% per point

-Wisdom - Casting Speed +0.2% per point
Magic Accuracy Rating +1 per point
Min Magic Damage +0.5% per point

I came up with this custom stat system, since it seems to encompass encouraging any class to try a multitude of stat point builds without having any single stat completely useless to any potential class.
(Most stats are a simple % per point, but if you notice Melee accuracy, Ranged accuracy, Magic Accuracy, Elemental Resistance, and Dodge Rate are on a point rating system using roll check against enemy's stats to determine their effectiveness so they don't become unbalanced)

- Skill Balancing Mod - To make sure everything scales properly and that there are no useless passive skills

- Dungeon Randomization Mods - Map reset NPC (re-rolls maps ,random chunks, quests, and all, while in game, requires all players to be at the NPC and to accept the map re-roll), Map re-roll when no players are present for 20 minutes.
(Either of these mods would help streamline keeping a party going especially when doing particular dungeon runs or when someone joined the run late)

- Equipment Requirement Mods - Level Only, No Requirement, and Special Requirement mods (Perhaps only being able to wear special gear after a quest to remove its curse or having to wear another item before equipping it, and having to keep it equipped while wearing it)

- Item Recipe Mods - Item modifier re-rolling recipes (re-randomizing item bonuses without changing the base item), base item upgrade recipes (keeping the same item bonuses, while upgrading the base item to the next higher level weapon/armor type that is of the same line of class, i.e. heavy armor or 2handed sword etc.)

- Item Bonuses Mods - Special bonuses for dual wielding a particular item or for wearing a 2 handed weapon.

- New Weapon Type Mods - Dual wieldable Shield with low damage stats (for custom shield class that has shield mastery to up the damage to normal levels so it is only really useful to have more than 1 for that particular class), 2 handed shield for super tank class (using for anchored barrier skills, AOE, charge attacks etc.), slingshots, boomerangs, nun-chucks, Bo staffs, ninja stars,etc.

- Removal Mods - Remove pets, Invisible Passive Pets (with carrier pigeon animation for when you send items back to sell), Remove Fish, Remove Fishing, Remove Spells, Remove Guns, Etc.
(These mods would remove certain things in the game to give people options to disable things they feel they do not want in their game)

- Town Rebuilding Mods - all of the towns or just an extra deserted town could start out destroyed/abandoned and in order to rebuild the town you could complete quests to rescue towns people that would construct buildings, open special stores, provide new services, etc.
(The current town condition would be based on the game host/creator and could be refreshed when a new host takes over and the maps are re-rolled via map re-roll NPC.)

There could also be doom portals that follow you and if they catch you they could take you through basically a phase portal and in there you could have town portal disabled. And when the portal to Hades is open, there could be monster spawners that follow your character and at random intervals spawn monsters...probably when only in the bonus zone and maybe one other zone (so it doesn't get annoying since there will be somewhere to afk).

(The game basically has Act 1,2,3,etc. like Diablo 2 so this mod would be like an expansion adding an additional act 5 or whatever number)

- PVP Arena Mod - This mod could add a large central PVP arena to smash heads for good times. Additionally there could be a Trade NPC whom accepts players' ears, hearts, or whatever body parts they drop as payment in exchange for small prizes (potions, small gems, etc.).

- Enter-able Buildings Mod - Adds buildings in-town that you are able to enter, these could be open roof buildings or portals to micro maps that resemble the interior of the building.

- Day/Night Cycle Mods - Always Daytime, Always Night Time, or having twilight and pitch-black cycles for day and night. Additionally the each playable character could have a small area of Illumination to see...or not. :P

- Narration Mod - Add in Narration to the game (Examples: deity Narration, Quests Log Narration, Narration after quest hinting as to what to do next, leave recorded voice messages with an in-game NPC or object

- Transformation Mod - Transform into different were monsters at night (i.e. were ape, werewolf, were gator, etc.). For vampires, burst into flame during daylight (safe in caves and in building), possibly add transformation skills to a class/new class (i.e. shape shifter) shape shifting could provide unique damage/armor bonuses to certain monster race, element, etc. or special skills that require certain shape shifts to use

- Additional Environmental Traps Mod - Rock slides (these could be triggered by stepping on certain random triggers causing paths to be blocked), Buried Landmines (only slightly visible, detonates when stepped off of, could be escaped using teleport skill before stepping off), Bees Nests (attack you with a homing bee swarm, would be like an arrow turret but homing...and buzzing :P )

- Elemental Shifting Mod - Elemental Shifts (the elemental appearance and effect of of map chunks, monsters attack and defense, and monster spawn races) could be based on time cycles, random intervals, or a custom class skill of say an Elementist. Also some monsters could be immune to elemental shifts.

- Hazardous Weather Mods - Add new weather types that occur either in cycles or at random. New weather types could be: Meteor Showers, Icicle Shower, Bolt Storm that goes across the map Horizontally, Alien Invasions (with UFOs dropping evil aliens trying to harvest the ember of the land for galactic domination...ok that one seems a little silly :P ), earth quakes rip open the ground releasing the undead tainted by evil ember.

- Camera Control Mod - Mod to enable the camera to be spun and tilted via hold control + shift + right click.

- Jump Skill Mod - Mod to add an active skill to all the classes to allow jumping (Possible Parameters: Line of sight required, 0 mana cost, 4 second cool down, limited range just enough to clear 1 or 2 small monsters). This would obviously be just for fun and for getting unstuck from a corner or crowd of monsters.

- Death Penalty Mods - Death could have different effects such as: higher loss of exp/fame/gold, or no exp/fame/gold loss, or item(s) drop, or item(s) destroyed, or dead until resurrected by other player in-game (leaving game while dead would lock you out of that particular game instance).

- Resurrection Skill Mod - While dead, spawn buttons would be disabled and grayed out, when another player uses resurrect skill on you it enables the buttons, otherwise all death penalties are 0.

- Shrunken Curse Spell Mod - Shrinks target monster causing them to be scaled down to a smaller size and have slower move speed.

- Potions/Town Portal mod - Mod to make potions and town portals more rare by lowing their drop rates and removing them from vendors (makes players fight more carefully).

- Right Click To Use Hotkeyed Skill Mod - Mod to allow skills to be right clicked from the hotkey bar much like potions and scrolls can be right clicked to use.

- Fame Leveling Mod - In this mod, each base level would still give 1 skill point and 5 stat points, but each fame level would only give 1/10th of a skill point and 5 stat points.
(With starting with 1 in all stats with 24 stat points to distribute and 1 skill point to distribute, and with no skills pre-learned, this would give a total of 1014 stat points to spend and 110 skill points to spend at levels Base 100/Fame 100)

- All Levels of a Skill have Same Requirements Mod - For this mod, each base level you gain will unlock 1 of the 30 skills a class has. When the level requirements are met, you can put up to 10 points in that skill right away.

- Monster Level Scaling Mod - This mod would scale monster's levels with a certain threshold for each zone or possibly each dungeon.

Example: Zone 1 Monster Level = ((Player Level)+(-20) {Min Level Threshold: Monster's base level on that map}) So the first monsters in Zone 1 would be level 1 until you reach level 21 then they would start gaining levels with you 1:1.

And since monster's spawned are locally owned it could be based on who is closest when the monster's spawn point to determine their level.

Items dropped could be based on monster levels, so in order to fight lower level monsters to find lower level loot, you would need a low level player to lead or higher level player leading to find higher level monsters (as long as they exceed the level threshold); So you can basically choose what level monsters you want to encounter on the fly (based on your party members' levels).

Alternatively the party leader could be the level base used for calculating all the levels of monsters you encounter.

This would be identical for every zone but obviously with different threshold levels. Possible threshold modifiers Zone 1 (-20), Zone 2 (-15), Zone 3(-10), Zone 4 (-5), Zone 5 (0)
(In short, this would only change monster levels once you are well above the level of each zone map (i.e probably beaten the dungeon/map anyway) = Good for replay value)

- No Knockback Attack Mod - This mod would prevent regular attacks from knocking back monsters, while knockback bonuses from items would still be applied while using class skills.

- Wands and Staffs Mods - Some ways these mods could change staffs and wands: Wand damage could be made dexterity based like bows, while staff damage could be strength based much like swords; Staffs and wands could add a % damage to a caster class's skills (magic damage would only be used for magic based class skills); and/or A staff or wand could be required to cast any of a caster class's skills.

- No Floaty Text Mod - This mod would remove all floating text such as damage, blocked, glancing blow, etc.

- Enchanter Mods - Some possible mods for the enchanter: Remove the enchanter entirely, Remove enchanting and leave socketing service for a much higher gold cost, or have enchantment limit of 1 per item with no chance of failure (possibly with the ability to select any 1 bonus of choice from a scrolling drop down box list).

- Tab Skills Mod - This mod would give more skill slots to tab through for the right mouse click.

- Item Rarity Mods - This mod could change a few things about item rarity such as: rename item rarities to common, uncommon, rare, and superb; remove static or set bonuses (all bonuses would be random and rarity level would effect bonus variety and strength); adjust drop rates higher, lower, or 0 (such as no common drops, or no rare drops, etc.)

- Spell Books Mod - A mod to add in spell books to the game. The spell book could be worn in place of a shield and add magic attack power, magic defense, or a select spell or spells.

These spells could possibly be unlimited but have high mana cost (or possibly other limiting factors such as long cast time, long cool-down time, etc.), the spells could be on a limited charge limit and slowly regenerate charges over time, or they be normal spells and could cause detrimental effects to the user on a % chance when used such as HP loss, curse, poison, mana wipe, stun, etc.

- Crafting Scrolls Mod - A mod to add in a Misc. type item with instructions (on item description) of what other items to add in crafting with it (or just with one another) in order to make a certain base item. Items crafted would have a chance of receiving item bonuses based on their quality (quality chances would be same as default for each quality's drop rate).

- Potion Carrying Limit Mod - This mod would set the carry limit of total health potions of all varieties to possibly 5, 10, or 20 and all mana potions of all varieties to possibly 2, 5, or 10.

- Stamina Mod - Limits the amount a character can run when in close proximity to monsters. This would dissuade constant kiting and dungeon dashing. The limit would have to be balanced to allow for retreating, and when no monsters are around, running should have no drain on stamina.

- Blocked Attacks Mod - This mod would make it so when a block with a shield is successful, the user takes 10% of the original damage rather than 0%.

- Armor Bonuses Mod - This mod would make lighter armor types to have better bonuses to spell casting classes, medium armor types have better bonuses for physical damage classes, and heavier armor types to have better bonuses to tank type classes. There would be no additional equipment restrictions, but rather more benefits for wearing appropriate armor types.

- Custom Campaign Mods - These mods would be alternative story lines to Torchlight 2 (whether branching off from the default first town, Main overworld hub, or replacing the first town altogether). Additionally, sequential Acts in the story could be added after the main story had ended (as extensive bonus side quests with entire acts dedicated to them or as a branching story going through several additional acts, telling of the adventures that the heroes would continue onto immediately after the original or alternative story ended).

Re: Torchlight 2 Mod Ideas

To add to it, I'm betting probably one of the first mods for Torchlight 2 will be to recreate the original classes. I think the original torchlight campaign being recreated in Torchlight II is also likely.

I wonder if Runic would allow someone to import items and monster resources from the first game into the sequel? Most game developers would never permit it, but Runic has been incredibly permissive to their modding community, they even said we could edit the source code.

To add to it, I'm betting probably one of the first mods for Torchlight 2 will be to recreate the original classes. I think the original torchlight campaign being recreated in Torchlight II is also likely.

I wonder if Runic would allow someone to import items and monster resources from the first game into the sequel? Most game developers would never permit it, but Runic has been incredibly permissive to their modding community, they even said we could edit the source code.

This would be quite easy. Just import meshes from TL1 into Blender and then export them to the format used for TL2. Hell, if it's the same structure and nothing's changed you can probably just directly port the weapons and their respective .dat files into TL2's folder hierarchy and bypass having to manipulate them through a 3rd party 3D modeling program.

Side note: posted this over on the RG forums but I had a great idea of a type of mod I'd like to see implemented in TL2.

Idea: Coliseum

Premise: You, along with 3 of your friends, enter the Coliseum and take on ever increasing waves of monsters to climb the ranks in a chance to earn rare treasures (i.e. - modded gear)

Sounds like: Firefight from Halo mixed with Left 4 Dead

Say what?: A never-ending battle against mobs, culminating with waves filled with multitudes of boss monsters (think you can beast a wave of 4-5 Ordraks?) that will eventually make it virtually impossible for all but the best geared and talented teams of folks to succeed.

Interesting mechanics: Maybe add items that spawn randomly on the ground that act as temporary power ups (a speed boost potion that when consumed, allows you to run like the flash) that can only be used in the Coliseum and vanish from your inventory upon leaving.

Re: Torchlight 2 Mod Ideas

A working mount mod would be great too. The Chinese Mausoleum mod had the deer mount (although I admit that this entire mod is very unstable). The animation is possible, and it would just be neat to see your toon riding around on a tiger or golden bull or something like that. There could even be mount rewards for finishing a custom campaign with the mount themed for the campaign. For example, in a goblin fortress type mod, getting a special goblin hound to ride around on

Re: Torchlight 2 Mod Ideas

Oh, 1 thing I would really like to see come with the TL2 version of TorchEd: step by step tutorials for basic mods. For example, basic item creation, how to make your own monsters, and a simple tutorial on how to make a basic level. I found the tutorial documentation for TorchEd for TL to be seriously lacking. Why include a tool that you cannot intuitively learn how to use and not provide a better tutorial for it? This is a concept that many, many, many ppl have asked for over the past few years (including myself).

I would also like to see some player tutorials made (by ppl talented and knowledgeable about modding), so many ppl ask for them, both here and on the official RG forums.

Re: Torchlight 2 Mod Ideas

Originally Posted by Ramli

Oh, 1 thing I would really like to see come with the TL2 version of TorchEd: step by step tutorials for basic mods. For example, basic item creation, how to make your own monsters, and a simple tutorial on how to make a basic level. I found the tutorial documentation for TorchEd for TL to be seriously lacking. Why include a tool that you cannot intuitively learn how to use and not provide a better tutorial for it? This is a concept that many, many, many ppl have asked for over the past few years (including myself).

I would also like to see some player tutorials made (by ppl talented and knowledgeable about modding), so many ppl ask for them, both here and on the official RG forums.

agreed would love more tutorials when TL 2 comes out everything ive managed to figure out was from watching 10 TL 1 videos and the stuff they gave out with TorchED, rest was lot of trial and error and lots of staring at things they did for the main game